[[center][h1][u][b]The Jade Citadel of Hongol[/b][/u][/h1][h3][u]The Gladiatorial Pits[/u][/h3][/center]
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“Second Company wheel around through the habblocks to the East, contain the Pacifican brigade ahead, and the First will crush them.”

The affirmative ping in Captain Costas’ helmet display gave her all she needed to know of her command. She silenced the alert as the second company surged off her auspex to the East and directed her attention back to the stubborn Pacifican defenders at her front.

She stepped out into the window of the habblock apartment she was in, her volkite rifle spitting death at a Pacifican heavy stubber team. The three-man crew burst into ash and flame with a single trigger pull each, and Costas ducked back into cover as a lascannon began to pepper the window she had been standing in.

A vox request came in from Elena, and she accepted it with a thought, “Go ahead.”

“We can make entry into the entertainment district just beyond this defensive line, and movement to the fighting pits is achievable through the maglev tunnels connecting the two. Pacifican prisoners confirm this.”

Costas nodded instinctively, even though her Adjutant was some two kilometers separated from her, “Noted, continue to press the defenses from the West, we have a timetable to keep.”

A legionary in the apartment stepped into the window and fired a volley of bolt rounds toward the defenses with heavy barks. A moment later, the Astartes was thrown bodily across the room as the blinding red light of a lascannon found its mark in the center of her chest. 

A medicae ducked from cover and rushed to the fallen marine, grabbing an arm and unceremoniously dragging her sister out of the room and out of sight into the cover of the interior hallway. 

Costas allowed herself a moment of pity before she activated her voxgrille.

“Reposition, they have this apartment sighted.”

Her sisters fell back out of the room at once and sprinted down the hall to another apartment to take up new positions. Costas stopped just outside the doorway and directed her attention to the Medicae and her fallen sister.

To their credit, the medicae did not look up from their work as they addressed their commander, “Sister Antonia, another added to the list of martyrs for unity, Ma’am.”
“Another added.” She agreed before sprinting down the hallway to follow the rest of her sisters.

The fight from the habblock was quick and brutal, but the sisters of the Seventeenth pressed on, ever forward. The first company pressed on toward their objective, the gladiatorial pits of the Jade Citadel, with the inevitability of a hurricane bearing down on a makeshift home. They cleared strongpoints, overwhelmed gun positions, felled tanks, killed men, and they died in droves.